Awesome
node-build
node-build is a command-line tool that simplifies installation of any Node version from source or precompiled binary on Unix-like systems.
It is available as a plugin for nodenv as the nodenv install
command, or as a standalone program as the node-build
command.
Installation
Homebrew package manager
brew install node-build
Upgrade with:
brew upgrade node-build
Clone as nodenv plugin using git
git clone https://github.com/nodenv/node-build.git "$(nodenv root)"/plugins/node-build
Upgrade with:
git -C "$(nodenv root)"/plugins/node-build pull
Install manually as a standalone program
First, download a tarball from https://github.com/nodenv/node-build/releases/latest. Then:
tar -xzf node-build-*.tar.gz
PREFIX=/usr/local ./node-build-*/install.sh
Usage
Basic Usage
# As a nodenv plugin
$ nodenv install --list # lists all available versions of Node
$ nodenv install 10.13.0 # installs Node 10.13.0 to ~/.nodenv/versions
# As a standalone program
$ node-build --definitions # lists all available versions of Node
$ node-build 10.13.0 ~/local/node-10.13.0 # installs Node 10.13.0 to ~/local/node-10.13.0
Warning node-build mostly does not verify that system dependencies are present before downloading and attempting to compile Node from source. Please ensure that all requisite libraries such as build tools and development headers are already present on your system.
Firstly, if a precompiled binary exists for your platform, node-build downloads and installs it. Otherwise it will build node from source. Basically, what node-build does when installing a Node version is this:
- Downloads an official tarball of Node source code;
- Extracts the archive into a temporary directory on your system;
- Executes
./configure --prefix=/path/to/destination
in the source code; - Runs
make install
to compile Node; - Verifies that the installed Node is functional.
Advanced Usage
Binaries
By default, node-build will attempt to match one of the precompiled binaries
to your platform. If there is a binary for your platform, it will install it
instead of compiling from source. To force compilation, pass the -c
or
--compile
flag.
Custom Build Definitions
To install a version of Node that is not recognized by node-build, you can specify the path to a custom build definition file in place of a Node version number.
Check out default build definitions as examples on how to write definition files.
Generating Latest-Release Build Definitions
Additionally, check out the node-build-update-defs plugin. It generates the standard build definitions for releases available from nodejs.org. This allows you to install node versions as soon as they are available from nodejs.org, without waiting for node-build itself to provide them. Once installed:
nodenv update-version-defs
Custom Build Configuration
The build process may be configured through the following environment variables:
Variable | Function |
---|---|
TMPDIR | Where temporary files are stored. |
NODE_BUILD_BUILD_PATH | Where sources are downloaded and built. (Default: a timestamped subdirectory of TMPDIR ) |
NODE_BUILD_CACHE_PATH | Where to cache downloaded package files. (Default: ~/.nodenv/cache if invoked as nodenv plugin) |
NODE_BUILD_HTTP_CLIENT | One of aria2c , curl , or wget to use for downloading. (Default: first one found in PATH) |
NODE_BUILD_ARIA2_OPTS | Additional options to pass to aria2c for downloading. |
NODE_BUILD_CURL_OPTS | Additional options to pass to curl for downloading. |
NODE_BUILD_WGET_OPTS | Additional options to pass to wget for downloading. |
NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_CMD | A command to construct the package mirror URL. |
NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL | Custom mirror URL root. |
NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_PACKAGE_URL | Custom complete mirror URL (e.g. http://mirror.example.com/package-1.0.0.tar.gz). |
NODE_BUILD_SKIP_MIRROR | Bypass the download mirror and fetch all package files from their original URLs. |
NODE_BUILD_ROOT | Custom build definition directory. (Default: share/node-build ) |
NODE_BUILD_DEFINITIONS | Additional paths to search for build definitions. (Colon-separated list) |
CC | Path to the C compiler. |
NODE_CFLAGS | Additional CFLAGS options (e.g., to override -O3 ). |
CONFIGURE_OPTS | Additional ./configure options. |
MAKE | Custom make command (e.g., gmake ). |
MAKE_OPTS / MAKEOPTS | Additional make options. |
MAKE_INSTALL_OPTS | Additional make install options. |
NODE_CONFIGURE_OPTS | Additional ./configure options (applies only to Node source). |
NODE_MAKE_OPTS | Additional make options (applies only to Node source). |
NODE_MAKE_INSTALL_OPTS | Additional make install options (applies only to Node source). |
Applying Patches
Both nodenv install
and node-build
commands support the -p/--patch
flag to apply a patch to the Node source code before building. Patches are read from standard input:
# applying a single patch
$ nodenv install --patch 11.1.0 < /path/to/node.patch
# applying a patch from HTTP
$ nodenv install --patch 11.1.0 < <(curl -sSL http://git.io/node.patch)
# applying multiple patches
$ cat fix1.patch fix2.patch | nodenv install --patch 11.1.0
Checksum Verification
All Node definition files bundled with node-build include checksums for packages, meaning that all externally downloaded packages are automatically checked for integrity after fetching.
See the next section for more information on how to author checksums.
Package Mirrors
To speed up downloads, node-build can fetch package files from a mirror. To benefit from this, the packages must specify their checksum:
# example:
install_package "node-v12.0.0" "https://nodejs.org/dist/v12.0.0/node-v12.0.0.tar.gz#<SHA2>"
node-build will first try to fetch this package from $NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL/<SHA2>
(note: this is the complete URL), where <SHA2>
is the checksum for the file. It
will fall back to downloading the package from the original location if:
- the package was not found on the mirror;
- the mirror is down;
- the download is corrupt, i.e. the file's checksum doesn't match;
- no tool is available to calculate the checksum; or
NODE_BUILD_SKIP_MIRROR
is enabled.
You may specify a custom mirror by setting NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL
.
If a mirror site doesn't conform to the above URL format, you can specify the
complete URL by setting NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_PACKAGE_URL
. It behaves the same as
NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL
except being a complete URL.
For more control over the construction of the mirror url, you can specify a command
by setting NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_CMD
. node-build will invoke NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_CMD
with two arguments: package_url
and checksum
. The provided command should
print the desired mirror's complete package URL to STDOUT
.
Keeping the build directory after installation
Both node-build
and nodenv install
accept the -k
or --keep
flag, which
tells node-build to keep the downloaded source after installation. This can be
useful if you need to use gdb
and memprof
with Node.
Source code will be kept in a parallel directory tree $(nodenv root)/sources
when using --keep
with the nodenv install
command. You should specify the
location of the source code with the NODE_BUILD_BUILD_PATH
environment
variable when using --keep
with node-build
.
Retry installation without v/node-/node-v prefix
The nodenv-install plugin can attempt a retry if the installation failed due
to a missing definition file. If the given node version name begins with
'v', 'node', or 'node-v', the retry will drop the prefix and try again. For
instance, if nodenv install node-v11.0.0
fails because a definition file
does not exist by the name "node-v11.0.0", it will retry as "11.0.0".
For this retry to be attempted, the environment variable NODENV_PREFIX_RETRY
must be non-empty.
Getting Help
Please see the node-build wiki for solutions to common problems. Also, check out the ruby-build wiki.
If you can't find an answer on the wiki, open an issue on the issue tracker. Be sure to include the full build log for build failures.
Credits
Forked from Sam Stephenson's ruby-build by Will McKenzie and modified for node.